Overview

A disgraced former ping pong champion is drawn back into the world of high-stakes table tennis to carry out a top-secret mission in the feature directorial debut of Reno 911! writer/director Ben Garant. Far removed from the rigidly regulated world of professional sports, clandestine ping pong tournaments offer thrilling competition where only the strong survive. There was a time when the mere mention of the name Randy Daytona Dan Fogler was enough to make even those most hardened ping pong player cower in fear, ...

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Overview

A disgraced former ping pong champion is drawn back into the world of high-stakes table tennis to carry out a top-secret mission in the feature directorial debut of Reno 911! writer/director Ben Garant. Far removed from the rigidly regulated world of professional sports, clandestine ping pong tournaments offer thrilling competition where only the strong survive. There was a time when the mere mention of the name Randy Daytona Dan Fogler was enough to make even those most hardened ping pong player cower in fear, but these days Randy has fallen out of favor with ping-pong fans. The former champ soon receives a much-needed shot at redemption, however, when he is recruited by a determined FBI agent named Rodriguez George Lopez to win a coveted spot in the upcoming underground table tennis tournament and ferret out the nefarious Feng Christopher Walken, whose thriving criminal empire has transformed him into a true menace to society.

Editorial Reviews

All Movie Guide

Balls of Fury was the recipient of much critical fury when it first hit theaters. Maybe that's because the title sounded like a ripoff of Blades of Glory, which came out earlier that year, or because Fury's Dan Fogler seemed like a transparent attempt at finding "a poor man's Jack Black." Whatever the reason, it was as though all the pent-up frustration about two-bit comedies and their enslavement to formula was unleashed on this one little ping-pong movie. Which contradicts one very central and very original thing about Balls of Fury -- it might just be the first ever mainstream comedy about ping-pong. And it's certainly the first film since Forrest Gump to digitally conjure such realistic feats of paddle prowess, which Fury does repeatedly, with contagious joy. That's a good way to describe the entire film -- its surprising warmth and sweetness can't help but feel contagious, once viewers look past their preconceived biases. Fogler is, actually, his own comic personality -- he bears a physical resemblance to Black, but his perfectly named Randy Daytona is Fogler's own Def Leppard-loving goofball creation. While Daytona is in fact a depressed schlub working the dingiest casinos in Reno, he's also a genuine ping-pong savant. A lesser script might have made him a hapless wannabe, but writer-director Ben Garant and writer Thomas Lennon respect Daytona's genius, finding the absurd in his situation, rather than requiring him to play the clown -- quite different from how they would have written his character on Reno 911! They've also dreamed up a funny array of ping-pong lifer nut jobs, whose tournament underworld is comic gold, especially as overseen by Christopher Walken in a kimono and a Brooklyn accent. The title tells you this movie has balls, but it can't prepare you for its unexpected heart.

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Disc #1 -- Balls of Fury
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Scenes
Bonus
Deleted Scenes
Gary Catches Randy to Escape
Rodriguez Tries to Use Credit Card to Open Door. FBI Shoots at Them
Feng and Randy on Rope Bridge
Feng's Presentation of Polymer Guns
Randy Empties His Trunk
Randy Sees Ghost of Dad in Alley
Randy Sees Ghost of Dad While Hanging From Bridge
Play All
Alternate Ending
Balls Out: The Making of Balls of Fury
Under the Balls: The Life of a Ball Wrangler
Languages
Spoken Language: English
Spoken Language: Français
Subtitles: English SDH
Subtitles: Español
Subtitles: Français
Subtitles: Off

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